


Air of the Storm

by 22KeyPHOENIX



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU, Air bending sub styles, Bagua, Bending, Gen, Martial Arts, Prequel, SI, Self Insert, Yin style Bagua, accurate in depth lore building, beginning of the war, violent airbender
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27120031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/22KeyPHOENIX/pseuds/22KeyPHOENIX
Summary: The air nomads are peaceful, striving to live in harmony with the world, and gain enlightenment. But not all benders follow the same dharma.My name is Yin, I’ve been reborn into this world as a airbender at the southernmost temple, 12 years before the start of the air nation massacre and the 100 year war into the body of a 3 year old child.Airbenders strive to be like their element. Free. Flowing. But air itself is a storm, uncaring, and chaotic. It will as easily help a bird fly as well as push a person off a cliff.The fire nation will try to kill me, my people, my way of life.They will not succeed.I’ll make sure of it.This is my story, of how when the temples were burning with comet enchanted fire bender flame, the airbenders rose up; threw down thousands of years of pacifism, and fought back.For the firebenders made one crucial mistake, if their powers grow with the sun, then ours grow with the storm.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

I was thirty and tree when I died, and woke up moment later in a strange land. The only memories that I had of the transition were of fuzziness. The complete confusion of being hit on the head, and being discombobulated. One moment, I was somewhere...and then I was waking up, looking at giants.  
Or rather, adults.   
They seemed like giants, because, I was small. Their faces seemed full of concerns, far, far larger than they should have been. I would like to say that my first moments of consciousness were ones of great enlightenment. Of consciousness realization, of instant understanding.  
What I heard were murmuring.   
The sound of bees, matching the noise inside my head.  
“Did he just?”  
“—I could have sworn that—“  
“—me too! And the hay went everywhere!”  
A concerned couple, my parents? Grabbing me by the hand, their faces pinched with worry, pulling me off my suddenly-too-small-feet and leading me away. He was large, much larger than me. His hands were strong, but thin. My pudgy hands engulfed and squashed in his python grip. A strong smell permeated his persons, like something of a Chinese medical den, a miasma, just coating his jacket like a dense smog.  
“You don’t suppose that?—“ the woman began.  
“—Shush woman! This is the answer to our problems.“  
“But Yasun, surely we don’t have to—“  
“—we do.” The mans sharp features contorted, pulling me harshly by the hand. He gestured at me without glancing.  
“How else do we get the money by tomorrow?” He laughed cruelly. “You have any gold hidden from me?” His eyes were sharp, sharp and wild. The kind of gleam that addicts had.  
The woman looked at me sadly, her eyes contemplating.   
She signed and nodded.  
The man dragged me along.

  
What happened next was a whirlwind of motion. They dragged me, too fast, too sudden across the small town. My legs methodically tattered along, taking small choppy steps following them. How old was I? Where was I? What happened?  
I’d died...was that what happened?  
My forehead creased in concentration, trying to remember something—anything—that could help.   
Nothing came to mind.  
The man—Yasun—seemed like a sorry excuse for a person, much less a father. I peered closer at his face; it was rough, unshaven. My feet stumbled over a rock, no a pebble, on the dirt road we were stumbling on.  
Where was this?   
The architecture was nothing like I was used to, yet seemingly familiar. A dirt road, cutting the town in half. Still pulled along I turned my head back, seeing the bazaar, and the town entrance last that. We were far away, but the sounds of the bazaar carried on the wind. It sounded much closer than it ought to have been.  
“Come boy.” Yasun roughly pulled me along.  
I yelped with pain, causing him to swat me in the face violently.  
“Silence!” Yasun roared. “You’ve finally got some use to me boy! Don’t go ruining it!”  
“Yasun...”I looked to the woman. She turned her head away, seeming to be unable to look at me.  
“Yasun.. don’t strike him so hard. The monks won’t like that.” She chastised. Too little, too late.   
Yasun just nodded, turned his head to spit on the ground, and continued to yank me along the uneven road.

  
The architecture was Asian, I’m sure of it. But what era or nation, I did not know. The long road, cob buildings, could have been anywhere from ancient China to modern day Malaysia. As helpful as that realization was, it was of no use to me. I was in a small body, that of a child for sure. Even if this was the modern era—there was no way I could go back to the life I had before. And all hints were deviously suggesting this was far from it. The building style was literally used for thousands of years. If I was reincarnated into the past—because what else could this be—It could be anywhere in the past.   
Somewhere where no generic history tidbit would be of use.  
There was definitely something suspicious going on. Yasun, my father, apparent Opium addict, was selling me to monks. He was pulling me along, things were changing faster that I could follow. It all sounded too loud, the lights seemed too bright. The wind tugged my shaggy hair, bringing snippets of conversation there was no way I should have still heard. Something about a destroyed cart—blessed by the spirits? I brushed a stalk of hay out of my hair. How’d that get there?  
Before I knew it, before I could voice anything, Yasun stopped. Lost in thought I crashed into him, causing him to stumble. Yasun turned and shot a dirty glare at me, seeming mad at unable to do shutting, while the woman—my mother— got a monks attention.  
We were at the edge of town, a small wooden stall was set up, a few bald men were treating random villagers. I could see one such man, the eldest of the group, with orange and yellow robes bind a splint on a green wearing farmers leg.   
Shinto?   
No—Buddhist!   
.... Taoist?  
Any hint would be of use.   
Not that it would help.  
Whatever was about to happen would.  
I watched the older monk finish bandaging the man’s leg, nod reassuringly, and then turn around—somehow knowing we were there without turning.  
“Can I help you?” His face seemed kind, if impersonal.  
“Yes,” Yasun answered, trying to keep a sliver of greed out of his voice, “our son here, he’s been blessed by the spirits.”  
“Is he now?” The Monk peered at me with interest, if not a bit of suspicion, seeming to size me up with his sharp grey eyes.  
“May I ask how this happened?” The monk asked, squatted down to my level.  
“He doesn’t speak.” My mother, whatever her name was, spoke up.  
“No? Rather old for that isn’t he? How old by the way?”  
“His third year was celebrated the full moon of last month.” Mother spoke up.  
Yasun gritted his teeth, seeming to find her truthful answer aggravating, but slapped a plastic smile on when the monks eyes turned to him. “I heard there are special exceptions made sometimes.”  
“At times.” The monk agreed. “Depending on the circumstances. What happened?”  
“We were in town, at the bazaar, when a visiting cabbage merchant wasn’t watching where they were going and turned a sharp corner—“ Yasun began, “—the boy here was in the way, and the merchant ran into a stack of crates to avoid hitting him. The crates then fell, heavy ones they were too, when his eyes glowed and he moved his arm like this—“ Yasun poorly imitated some sort of open hand strike, “—and the crates just, burst in midair!”  
The monk seemed to still and think carefully before speaking.  
“Glowed you say?”  
“Yes—white.” Yasun nodded, grinning. “But you see, we need him for the farm, so perhaps you could find it in your heart to double the separation fee?”  
“Let me test the child first,” the monk began. He sat himself more comfortably into the dirt. He seemed, perhaps, in my opinion, far too used to doing this sort of thing. However weather it was testing children, or dealing with their gold digging parents, I did not know.   
As he sat a gentle rolling horn sound echoed over the valley. Turning my head to the right, I got my first real glimpse out of town and into the wilderness. It was, without a doubt the most beautiful sight of natural beauty I’ve ever witnessed; and also one that struck me to my core.  
Disregarding the lush trees, the towering mountains, the wide open sky with not a single airplane trail in sight, I finally remembered why the monks orange yellow robes seemed so familiar. There, way in the distance on one of the mountain spires, was a temple.  
A temple with blue spires, where the rolling horn sound was echoing from. It wasn’t just any old temple, it was a airbender temple. The Southernmost one.  
The monk turned to the sound of horns. It was a repetitive drone in threes, obviously a message of some kind, and something important.  
Any thoughts of this being a long drawn out prank faded when small dots started raising from the ground to the sky in the distance. Sky bison.   
The monk turned back to face me, eyes seemingly intent on something.  
“Sit please.” He commanded, patting the earth in front of him. He was sitting in the most rigid cross legged position.  
I sat on the ground, trying to imitate him, then deciding I lacked the capability.  
“Now, this may be a bit strange,” he began, “but I’ll use some bending to test if you have the gift, along with checking your energy balances. Sit still allright?”  
The gift?   
Energy balances?   
My eye’s had glowed just as this body—whoever it was originally—seemed like was close to death?  
Oh.   
Oh no.  
Please tell me I was not Isekai’d into the Avatar world.   
Luckily, whatever was going on, I was not Aang—not that I could see. If I recall lore correctly, he was bought to the temples as a kid? Things were ancient seeming. Definitely before the 100 year war. With any luck I could just be a monk, live a peaceful life. Not have to worry about war or where my next meal would come.   
The monk bought out a feather and waved his hand. A small whirlwind appeared, keeping the feather spinning in slow lazy circles.  
“Tell me...what do you hear?”  
The wind, each little individual rivers, flowing in midair seemed to... listen to the bender. They turned, and flowed, rushing to his palm to spin the feather in place.  
“Hmm.. I see..” the monk murmured. Evidently he’d noticed me feeling the airflow. “Let’s try this next.”  
He dropped his hand, the feather coming with it, and waved his hand in a circle before dropping it to observe me.  
The wind was...circling us? I could hear it’s voice, flowing over his shoulders and head, coming to me. The wind bent around him smoothly. Gently. As if he was a mountain and the wind was flowing around him, not striking him.   
The wind was blowing me. Small gritty pieces of earth were striking my left side, before flowing peacefully to the monk.  
Could I do that?  
“Try.” The monk nodded reassuringly.  
I sank into concentration. 

It was the wind.   
Wild, untamed.   
It listened to me.   
At first, I tried commanding it. Telling it to stop blowing grit on me. To blow to the monk, to do what I commanded.  
It did nothing.  
But, it was wind. The element of freedom. It only does what it wants to do.  
Instead of commanding—I suggested—perhaps you could flow just around me? I imagined a bubble, just blanketing my form. Like a old school Star Trek shield, but humanoid shaped.  
The wind heard.  
And replied.  
The Monk gasped aloud.   
I opened my eyes and was greeted with a shock.   
A wall of wind blanketed my form. It was almost exactly as I had imagined in—a bubble of wind, like a force field extending from my skin—blanketed my persons in a protective caccoon. The monk let go of his wind, the one he’d been strengthening unbeknownst to me the whole time, until I was bombarded with practically a gale force wind.  
“So?” Yasun gruffly interrupted. “He worth the extra hastle?” He asked greedily.  
The monk seemed ready to say something, choosing instead to sadly shake his head and wave for a younger monk to grab a coin purse.   
“Here,” the monk passed two small bags over to my mother, while Yasun practically salivated from a distance. “I hope this helps.” The monk bowed solemnly.  
The couple, my parents, turned around leaving me with the monk. We watched them walk a distance, and then Yasun snatched the gold out of my mothers grasps. No doubt on his way to an opium den of some sort.  
Was this it?  
No goodbye?  
Not that I had any memories of them at all. I seemed to have some memories, but they were hazy and fractured. Like trying to remember what you did after a night of drinking tequila.   
Like a fever dream where everything made sense.  
They weren’t speaking English, yet I somehow understood everything perfectly. I wasn’t hearing English—and the scripts on a job posting board with wanted posters were in some sort of flowing script.   
Yet—I could understand it. Not well, but basic words stuck out.  
I was in another world?  
An Airbender?   
And apparently a powerful one at that.  
What was to happen now?  
Muffled in the distance we heard a soft groan. Up overhead a flying bison dipped down like a low flying plane, and another monk dived off the bison. I froze in panic for a moment before remembering.  
Of course! —Airbender.   
He could jump from high places without worry.  
The bald monk glided down on his glider, before closing it with a flourish.  
“Monk Gattya,” He bowed respectfully, “your presence is requested with the High Elders at the temple.”  
The elder monk, Gattya apparently, snorted chuckling. “What’s got their robes in a twist?”  
“The statues,” the other monk spoke still bowing, “their eyes all glowed a little while ago. The Avatar has been reincarnated anew.”  
The Avatar?   
Which Avatar?  
That’s interesting, but very suspicious.   
They... wouldn’t be talking about me, would they?  
It couldn’t be. The avatars always born into a new form—not fusing with a 3 year old child. I was safe—I had to be safe.  
I tugged Monk Gattya’s robe, while I could understand the language, making my younger move into these strangely familiar unfamiliar shapes was too much of a challenge in the moment.   
“You can stop bowing,” Gattya said, “help me get packed so we can get to the temple.”  
“We?” The younger monk asked standing up, confusion on his face. After a moment he noticed me, quirking a eyebrow to the elder monk in a silent question.  
“His parents just found he had the gift—seemed real eager to get rid of him.” He began. “I tested him, he’s got power and potential. Furthermore, according to his parents just before he bent the first time, his eyes glowed.”  
“His eyes glowed? Then—it couldn’t be?”  
“—Perhaps. It’s too early to tell. We’ll need the elders to test and make sure, monk Gyatso especially. He knew Roku well.”  
“Come little one,” monk Gattya gently pulled me to a sky bison. “We’ll ride Oogi to the temple together.”  
His words were kind and gentle, but lost on me.  
Monk Gyatso? Roku?  
I may not be the avatar, but I knew where I was now.  
The realisation chilled me to my bones, and all hope of a peaceful life with it.  
Avatar Roku had just died, and been reincarnated.   
Monk Gyatso was alive.   
I was a airbender, 12 years before sozins comet.  
Before the Airbender Genocide.  
Before the burning of the temples.  
I was screwed.


	2. Headache at the Stables

Flying on the back of a bison was unlike anything I’d expected.

Sure, its a giant mammal, the size of two party busses side-to-side. The origin of air-bending apparently. But flying on one wasn’t what I expected it would.

For starters, the air flew in reverse. Ive been on planes before—I think—memories of previous life were.....hazy. I suspect they’d probably never come back. That was to be expected really, in any Isekai situation.

Oogi, the sky bison, could fly.

And Sky Bison flew by having the wind pick them up from the bottom, and propel them through the sky. Obvious really when you think about it. It’s not as if the sky bison had turbines propelling them forward.

It was all updraft.

Huh.

The elder monk held me close as the forest zoomed beneath us. For some reason, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, something seemed...different about the elderly airbender. Thoughts of that were shaken out of my mind, pushed aside by something more important.

We were flying!

The sky bison happily groaned, dipping low occasionally to graze the top of trees.

“You never get tired of it.” The monk spoke up, a smile adorning his face. The temple seemed larger in the sky now as the forest started thinning beneath us. How fast were we going? The sky bison was flying along, but I couldn’t tell how fast. It seemed rapid —possibly.

The small body was making it difficult to tell scale.

“Don’t worry,” he pulled me down onto the saddle, “you’ll learn to fly on one someday.”

The language still seemed bizarre. I could understand him, and tried mouthing out the words my brain and body said meant ‘thank you’, but it seemed foreign in my mouth. Like a new set of braces.

It was fine.

He didn’t seem to take my silence as offensive.

The temple seemed closer in the sky as the ground beneath us changed from trees with a small river twisting and turning among small rocks, to sheer boulder cliffs and towering cliffs.

“Don’t worry. They’ll just test your bending prowess, a little bit more complex than what I could, and then you’ll have a new home.”

I nodded. Both unsure of what to say, or what would be expected to say in my place. Being a three year old and all.

Oogi groaned happily, Gattyareached a hand forward rubbing the bisons fur triggering another groan. We were passing thought a valley of stone, grey clouds hung in the sky obscuring the sun.

And then we rounded a spire, and my first glimpse of the Southern Air Temple took my breath away.

Animation could not do it justice.

How? How on earth could they build this?

This, this, this monstrosity of a temple on a mountain with no paths.

Sheer cliffs surrounded the temple from all sides.

The cliff-faces looked fragile. Like pica chips stalked high, left by a giant carelessly playing Jenga.

The temple had multiple spires.

Towering.

Blue tipped.

Eight in total. Some, like the grandest of them all towering above all. Built into the mountain itself. Other smaller ones were clustered, peppering the mountain.

The lowest of them all was a cluster of three. But no less grand, no less imposing than the rest.

The towered from the mountain top, hundreds, several hundreds of feet high. Like oak trees reaching to the heavens. A monolithic mushroom, each with a single blue stripe creeping from the base to the top. The mountainside was no less imposing. Winding roads wove their way throughout the harsh mountain side slope. Gentle billowing curves, a river of stone, contrasted with roughharsh drop offs. There were no guardrails on the billowing passageways.

Nothing to stop someone from falling.

Nor on the organic, almost cob-like style of building steps. Each one dozens of feet from roof to roof. Evidently made for leaping with Airbender powered leaps. The spires had spear points of metal adorning the spire. Each the length of two, if not three full grown Airbender bison.

The only places i could see which had some measure of protection was a stone platform, growing ever closer, with high stone walls connected to the remainder of the sinewy stone river by a great bridge.

This was a air temple?

It was massive. Each building, if build using the machine powered construction I was familiar with would have been a massive undertaking, the kind requiring the GDP of a mid-size nation.

We were flying closer, and the temple grew bigger.

“See there?” The monk pointed as Oogi slid into a sharp descending curve. “That’s the Sky Bison stables.”

The wind shifted, and with it the sheer noise of the temple roared like a summers thunderstorm. What I thought was a small landing platform on the underside of the billowy roads came into focus. It was the size of a commercial parking lot. Built into the mountain was a wide, almost endless seeming, open ended stable with multiple entrances in and out of the mountain.

“Hold on, we’ll be landing in a moment.”

Oogi groaned, flapped its tail roughly and the wind changed anew. It blew towards me. Rough. Almost strong enough to blow off the bison were it not for Monk Gyatto’s firm grip on my shoulder.

We landed with a resounding thump, the sky bisons tail slapping the smooth stone echoing in my ears. He jumped of the saddle, moving to Oogi’s face to pet his bison.

“There there...good girl.”

Oogi groaned happily, leaning into his hands.

A acolyte, some sort of monk? Someone dressed in a different style of robe walked over with a bale of hay in hand.

“Monk Gyatto?” They bowed respectfully, “The Elders are awaiting you.”

“Baaah.” The monk huffed. “I’m not going to waste time with those stuffy self centered paperpushers. Besides—Oogi here needs to get to the East temple soon.”

“I understand,”the stable boy said, “I’ll let Monk Gyatso know you’re here.”

“No need—I’m sure he’s sensed Oogi probably.”

The stable boy just nodded and left.

It was just me, the monk, and the massive—apparently pregnant sky bison. The stables smelt of earth and hay. A stiff cold wind blew in through the open doors, the natural and sculpted rock outface providing some form of protection, but atop a mountainside there was only so much protection that could be offered.

“You’ll like Gyatso,” the older non-tattooed monk suddenly said, “we were almost like brothers when younger. I’m sure he will help you get situated and everything.”

Thats what it was!

It struck me like a wall of Cold air. He had no arrow tattoos!

Why did he not have arrow tattoos?

A sharp breeze wiffled from the courtyard with a softer muffled bang. We both looked at the noise, and saw Monk Gyatso standing from a low crouch.

He... jumped from here? Flew?

“Still a fan of free falling I see, ehh Gyatso?”

Gyatso chuckled, shaking a tangled part of his robe loosely. “Still haven’t gotten your tattoo’s yet— master of the Sustained Wind.”

“Ugh.” Gattya shuddered. “Not you too.”

“I keep telling you—keep this up and there wont be a chance of me living long enough to see you get you arrows.”

They both stood stiffly, as if something tense was brought up, the kind of stillness from a long term fight; the kind that breaks family’s apart—before laughing.

“Ahhh,” Gyatso wiped a tear away, “Same old baby Gyatt-yat.”

They embraced for a long hug,before Gyatso pulled away. “Hmmm? You’ve finally chosen a student?”

“Ah no—we’d just picked him up down at the lower village. But while you’re here, i thought you could check him out. I’m not quite as good with the spiritual sensing aspect as you are old friend.”

Monk Gyatso smiled kindly, turning his head to Gyatto. “You’re much better than you think. I can’t keep up sustained winds to anywhere near your level. You’ve been keeping this one up for what, a half hour?”

“A full one.”

“Amazing,”Gyatso smiled widely, “simply amazing.”

Keeping up sustained winds? How? Why?

“Can you drop them?” Gyatso asked the tattoo barren monk.

The monk nodded in return, then looking at me to speak. “This...might be overwhelming at first. Ill let Gyatso get a second look before we decide on a treatment.”

“Very well old friend, lets do this.”

Gattya moved his hand, and the wind which I didn’t even feel stopped still.

The world rushed in to fill its place.

Everywhere was wind!

—Here! From the lowest floor stone—creeping and whistling in snakelike movements.

—There! Descending from the rafters! A slow cold draft.

The air, it was everywhere. It was too much.

Wind trails, like snakes in the air, streams of pressure everywhere, whispering a story—never-ending—always flowing.

It was too much.

Gyatso looked at me like a art student decrypting a English novels with of street graffiti. “Hmm......perhaps?..Yes..yes, I see.”

“Ill have to try a medial technique—what’s your name?” He interjected, looking at Gattya.

“He did not have one. I suspect his parents never gave one, never expected him to live.”

“Hmm....” Monk Gyatso hummed before explaining. “Ill try a sensory technique. This might feel a bit strange.”

Gyatso shifted, sitting on the firm stone, and wove his hand in a strange circular pattern. A cyclone of wind, like a birds eye view of a hurricane grew in his palm. The wind was gentle, slow, like a summers breeze. The sort that gently waved through the grass at dusk when fireflies light the sky, or wafting the smell of fresh baked pies. It pulsed. Then it glowed.

The miniature contained wind glowed a yellow white. It seemed to emanate peace and change. Warm feelings, of gentle security, the type of place where you could nap in a tree’s shadow in the midst of a spring day filled the room like air freshener.

Gyatso moved his hand closer, the strange windstorm touching my temple. And I knew no more.

My temples buzzed, everything whited out. Though the rest of the world was unseen in the sudden blinding whiteness of a snowstorm I could feel my skin tightening. Odd short sprints of wind pinching my skin, goosebumps forming and hairs being pulled like twigs in wild rapids.

It was over before it began.

Monk Gyatso pulled his hand back, my vision returned, and with it—the sights of the room.

It was trashed. Hay was blown each and which way—wild—chaotic. Stalks of weak wheat were speared through the small amount of wooden scones that adorned the stables. Did I do this?

The sound of laughter snapped me back to.

“Hahaha! Why! I haven’t seen such balanced imbalance ever in my 60 something years!” Monk Gyatso laughed.

“Wh-what was it?” I asked surprised, the language coming much easier than it was before.

“You’ve got a massive abundance of Yin energy,” Gyatso explained. “Truly. Massive! As if you have the life experience of several lifetimes crammed into you. And since you don’t have a name—ill just call you that. Yin.”

Yin.

I tasted the term in my mouth. Yin, that could work as my name. It was an apt one to be sure.

“Why is the wind so loud?” Yin croaked. “It just,” he waved his hand, “its too much.”

“It seems thats part of your energy imbalance,” Gyatso explained, partly to but mostly to Gattya. Who was apparently keeping a sustained wind cocoon around me to protect me from the voice of the winds the whole time. “You have the mental capabilities of a higher mid levelAirbender, just below mastery level, with none of the training or filters to block it.”

“Can anything be done?” Gattya asked. “I have to leave for the Eastern temple before sun fall.”

Gyatso chuckled. “Apart from mastery? Nothing.” He turned to Gattya to say his farewells. “Ill expect I’ll see you soon in a few years.”

“You’re finally taking an apprentice?”

“Of course!” Gyatso exclaimed. “Ive never meet such a interesting student since the Avatar! That is, only if you want it.”

A student? Of Monk Gyatso?

Why... was everyone staring at me?

“Yes!” Yin startled to. “I mean, of course! When do we start? How do we start? Is there anything that—“

“—calm down, calm down.” Monk Gyatso lowered his hands, the air pressure thickening comfortably like a weighted blanket. “The first thing we need to do is go to the Elders. They decide the fate of perspective new students you know. They’ll be the ones to peer at you more closely.”

Oh.

Oh that had potential to be nasty.

Well then.

Not really much of a choice, is there?

Yin breathed in deep, steeling himself.

High-ho, off we go.


	3. The Council of Five

“—it cannot be! He is too old!”

“How else would this imbalance be so—so perfectly balanced!”

“—We must train him!”

“Must we!?”

“It’s unprecedented—“

“—someone tell him how wrong he is!”

“—but not—“

“—Completely out of the question—“

The room descended into chaos. Monk on Monk, Elder on Elder, arguing—screaming at each other. This? These was the so-called Elders? The leaders of the Air nomad nation?

They were behaving just like children. Sitting on elevated platforms, shouting over each other. The entire situation, being on display with a council of Elders in a circular room was giving off a huge Star Wars vibes. Ones in which I was Anakin, about to be deemed “too old” to teach.

They argued.

They continued to argue.

It felt like lunch at a 7th grade public school.

“Don’t worry,” Monk Gyatso stage whispered with a smile, “I’ll take you as my student wherever they say.”

All of a sudden, the background shouting peaked in an argument.

“I will not let that—that cursed child around my students!”

“Cursed??! Perhaps he is blessed by the spirits! The Yin imbalance is perfectly stable!”

“Stable? Stable!? We all know that spiritual imbalances cause issues! What if he goes mad, starts attacking other students!”

“And what if we turn down someone blessed by the spirits!”

Two of the Elders reached peak argument against each other. Something, until then, I thought monks were not supposed to do. They were so impassioned, so committed to their point of view, they were shouting over the other—refusing to listen.

“Perhaps it will be best if you wait out in the hallway.” Monk Gyatso seemed to smile, wearily rubbing his head. “You’d think after 15 years they’d stop this nonsense...”He mumbled under breath.

“But what about the wind?”

“I can help with that,” Gyatso reached his palm forward, ready to start the spinning healing vortex. “This will help, at least for a bit. You’ll have to sit out and try to meditate.”

Seeing my perplexed looked Gyatso quickly backpedalled. “Just find a comfortable spot to sit, close your eyes, and breathe trying to keep track of the wind in you. Just your breath—ignore all else.”

His palm glowed with the contained cyclone. This time he placed it to the spot above Yin’s head, and the wind shifted outwards—turning into not quite a bubble or a halo, but a merry lightly glowing wind zipping little circles around my head like an excited puppy.

All at once, the noise of the wind got lower.

It was a relief.

Everything was muffled comfortably. My hearing, always sharp but never quite this sharp went from feeling like I was in the midst of a rock concert—to in a rock concert with earplugs. I could still hear the sound, muffled as it were, but quieter. No longer as deafening. No longer as suffocating.

“I like to think about my favorite animal at times like that.” Gyatso smiled. “Now go, go.” He waved his hands out the room. “This will probably take a while, but then we’ll get food, hmm? Not to brag—but I make the tastiest pastries this side of the mountainside.”

Yin just nodded, following the Monks directions and stepped out the room, finding some very comfortable throw pillows situated in scones on the wall.

This was as good of a spot as any.

As helpful as the Air Nomad was, I was still in a new world, with new powers which would apparently slowly but eventually drive me mad if they were not reined in.

Yin sat comfortably, back ramrod straight, closing his eyes, listening to the wind.

Deep breath in. Silence. Deep breath out. Silence.

Nothing is ever silent.

There is always motion, always noise. The silence of the hallway, with the airbending barrier of some kind to prevent conversation from leaking—or simply good construction did nothing to invalidate the wind that was everywhere else. Even quiet, the wind moved. It whispered, it murmured.

Yin could feel the wind tell the story of its journey.

A small warm breeze, like an excited garter snake. It brushed up against his forearm before zipping down the hallway. In a flash the story of its life played out in Yin’s mind. It was a breeze born from hot rock earlier that day, when the sun rose to shine over the mountainside. Warm air rising gently as its consciousness that was—not—quite—there; but still somehow there, breathed to life. It soared around branches, played with a leaf. Buzzed with the scorpion bee’s and carried pollen to make a monk sneeze. It hugged the valley and soared with the rocks, frolicking through the plants and playing with the bamboo wind chimes.

There were dozens of such breezes.

Hundreds of them.

The very air itself was a story that repeated itself, told a new tale anew from the same elements of the old one. Different directions in the same town, different sides of the same tree. The wavering branches of trees connected at the roots, breathing with the forest. Shifting with the earth.

Air was not still.

Was not stable.

Was chaos in its madness, and kindness its rage.

And yet—still was also the air between moments.

Between breaths.

Between heartbeats.

The air was both yin and yang. Both rage, and serenity.

It was a paradox.

Existing in itself. Taking from all, and returning all.

I lost myself in its whisper. It’s voice. It’s tales. It sang a tale, a saga, of bohemian proportions.

Like a siren it would have dragged me under were it not for a pastry smacking my head.

“Ughh!” Yin startled. “Who threw that!” Yin looked around.

Left— no one. Right—neither.

“Who just throws...” He sniffed the red goop covering his hair and hands, “cherry pie at people?”

“That was me—“ an apologetic tone said. “—sorry. You were just sitting in Guru Gyatso’s scone, and your chi felt a bit like him, and we have this long ongoing game where we try to throw the other off during meditation practices for sharper chi sensing, and—“

He kept rambling on.

It was a boy, older that this 3 year old body, but not by much. He was, surprisingly, not an airbender. He had hair, long, not quite as long as mine (no doubt from the apathy and carelessness of my parents), but not quite of the Earth kingdom kind either. He had tanned skin—but it wasn’t quite the darkness of the water tribe. He was dressed in the green earth tones of the Earth kingdom kind, and, I realized with a start, so was I.

Huh. That would explain the odd look or five in the hallways.

“Guru Gyatso?” Yin asked forehead scrunching. “I thought it was monk?”

The older boy—seeing a unasked question and grabbing it like a lifeline—answered. “Oh! Well, I’m not an airbender, but Gyatso is my shifu. So he’s guru Gyatso to me.” He finished proudly.

“And you are...?”

“Ah!” He bowed quickly, blushing with embarrassment and rubbing the back of his head. “Forgive me. Patick of the wandering tribe.” He popped his head up. “ Ill be Guru Patick once I’ve mastered my Chi fully. What’s your name?”

“Yin. I... I don’t know what I am.” Yin confessed. “This morning I air bent for the first time and Gyatso says I’ve been spirit touched. The wind won’t stop talking to me. It feels like its shouting.”

“Hmm... I see. Well, that explains the aura.”

“Aura?”

“Yeah,” Patick explained, “he left a protective Chi barrier to filter out some noise. It’s just there,” he pointed his hand at the empty spot around my head. “It’s why I confused you from a distance. Can’t you sense it?”

“No.” Yin tensed sadly. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Well, that’s easy then!” The Future Guru laughed. “All you need to do is learn to flare your Chi!”

“That sounds much easier said than done.” Yin replied.

“Well...maybe for most people. But to me?” Patick thumped his nose with a thumb. “I’m almost a master Chi manipulator. I can probably teach this to you easy.”

“Really?” Yin said, trying not to let too much desperate hope leak into his voice. The protective cloud that Monk Gyatso had left was fading and more and more sounds were leaking into the wind.

“As easy as Onion and Banana juice!” Patick smiled widely, sitting down on the floor in front of me, then pulling out a flask. “Speaking of which—want some?”

A waft from the opened cork snuck by my nose. “Ugh. I mean—no thank you.” Yin replied. “So—how do you learn to flare your Chi? How long would it take?”

“Hmm?” Patick finished chugging his Onion Banana juice mixture, using the back of his hand like a napkin. “Oh. Well, there’s the easy way, of spending weeks meditating on the energy of the universe and months later building it up; or the hard way, which skips all those steps but is a little dangerous.”

I didn’t have weeks, much less months to learn how to keep myself from falling into insanity. The hard way couldn’t be that bad—could it?

“How difficult is the hard way?” Yin asked. “It won’t like, kill me or anything?”

“No, no.... nothing like that.” Patick waved his hands placatingly. “It’ll just make you wish you were.”

That...sounds appropriately ominous actually. Maybe some sort of Chi locking system like the Chi blockers used?

“But you’re right,” Patick’s hand rubbed his beardless chin. “I suspect the fast way is probably the only safe way to go.”

“Great!” Yin said flatly. “When can we start?”

“Hmmm....” Patick scratched his head, considering something. “How about...now.”

With the speed of a jet stream his hand shot forward, balled into a fist—thumb extended. His thumb glowed white with a dulled spiritual glow. It extended in a strike, hitting Yin directly upon the center of the temple, between the eyes.

The metaphorical third eye.

Patick’s Chi flared.

A flash of pure white light rippled from his body, his eyes lit up as spiritual energy soared. The blast pushed Patick away, thankfully unarmed, as the winds roared and spun a protective caccoon around him. The doors from the meeting room opened as the high Elders ran out, not dissimilar to ants from a anteater.

“Wh—what’s going on?” One of the more stuffy looking ones yelled before noticing Patick. “Did you do this boy?! Answer me!”

“He has a severe imbalance! I thought it would help!” The future Guru yelled. “I didn’t think this would happen!”

“What is this! Explain the meaning of it!”

Patick struggled for a moment, he was familiar with the elders and their discontent for him. How to explain the intricacies of a system they deem beneath him and wouldn’t learn how to care for?

He didn’t have to, for Gyatso stepped in.

“The hard way of Chi requires a strong will. Of the spiritual over the physical, and thus the metaphysical.” Gyatso impromptu lectured. “It does so in a simple—but potentially fatal way. By causing the imbalance to fight against itself.”

“So that means that?” Patick asked his shifu.

“Yes.” Gyatso agreed. “Yin’s soul is now battling itself. It has partially left its corporeal shell, sucked away to the spirit realm, while also remaining here. We cannot disturb him.”

“Why not?” One of the Elders asked, getting ready to do just that.

“Simple. You would face the same fate.” Gyatso peered as his coworkers with a sly eye. “unless you want to permanently join the spirit world that is?”

“W-w-what’s going to happen to him now shifu?” Patick asked, tears falling from his eyes.

“Nothing we can help with my student,” Gyatso sadly said, “either he lives, and comes back with his Chi or he perishes in the spirit world. All we can do is wait.”

They looked at Yin, floating in mid-air, contained in a personal storm. His eyes glowed white with the power of someone spirit touched. His face contorted in emotional pain.

“...all we can do is wait.”


	4. One foot in the door

When Yin opened his eyes the first thing that greeted him was the pure whiteness of a snowstorm.

There was nothingness all around.

No wind, no noise, nothing. Nothing but peace and quiet.

Nothing but pure white noise, wavering in the air, silent as static.

Yin blinked, and everything remained unchanged. Looking around to ascertain where in the Spirits he was, the only sights stuck out in stark contrast to the emptiness of space.

Yin was on his back, laying down, seeming to float in the either staring at nothing—feeling nothing.

Perhaps laying down was not the best word.

Yin was suspended, floating In a bubble. There was no sense of gravity, of time, of space; but also urgency, of expectations, of pressure.

It felt good.

It was peace, of a sort.

The sort of uneasy rest you get falling asleep after sleep deprived rapid cramming before a final.

Falling asleep on the couch, knowing, somewhere in the back of your mind, that the laundry machine was leaking water all over the basement floor.

The peace one feels falling asleep face first against a bus window. Knowing you shouldn’t, but exhausted by the events of the day, and unable to face the Sandman's tantalizing tune.

It was peace that came at a price.

A steep one.

One you end up all to willing to pay, apathetic to the needs of the many, as long as the cost never attracts you.

Knowing that while you were resting, avoiding something of truly significant importance, worse things were stirring in the shadows.

Something bad would happen soon. Was happening. Fuelled by the inaction of choice. Inaction that could very well be avoided.

It could have been minutes or hours. Years or eons. But, eventually, Yin got up; ready—finally—to figure out what was going on. Before change was too late.

He was… Somewhere in the void. The ground was not quite solid, nor was it a cloud. Everything—himself included—was devoid of light. Silhouettes. Outlines on paper, seeming to be devoid of form save for the edges. Layers overlaid atop each other like stacks of trace paper on a light table. Illumination came from all sides, and blinking produced only more of the same blinding white.

The circular wall was a cyclone. Beyond it laid a realm of darkness.

Obvious really, in hindsight. Nothing exists in a vacuum. Even the void. The cyclone wall moved, if barely just. Slower than grass. Imperceptible to most.

Yin walked closer to it—or tried too. It was as if the laws of reality disallowed it for no rhyme or reason. The ground did not move at all, his feet just kicked the air mid stride. Suspended in the air, like a cannonball atop its parabolic arc. Peaking, ever so slowly, on its destructive trajectory.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the wall looming nearer, movement occurred. Until with a snap it accelerated without warning— throwing Yin into the darkness of space.

There was a moment—a heartbeat—perhaps less, perhaps more.

Yin was in the vastness of the void. Black. Only black. Murky, collorless, surrounding all, permeating more.

For one glorious moment Yin hung in space. Then the laws of reality awoke, and pulled him down with the force of a thousand suns.

There was this feeling of motion. As if accelerating on a rocket. But with no sights in mind, how was there any way to tell?

Still, the feeling grew. It grew like ice, the sinking feeling of falling in a dream, waiting for the jerk to wake you up, but instead falling deeper; deeper into a pit.

The bubble of light was long gone. Nothing was around, but still the feeling grew sharper. More potent. More deadly and closer still. Ever so close.

Then, without warning, as suddenly as childbirth, it happened. A light grew on the horizon.

Yin was falling towards it. It loomed like a brick wall, growing ever closer, ever faster. He’d hit it before yin could even scream, and pushed right through.

It was like plunging into a pool of water at great height. In a car. Drunk. Purple bubbles swarmed all around. Choking on air that was not there, Yin fell faster still.

Chambers of light, made of water stronger than bricks smashed into Yin on the decent down. Blue, green, yellow...

Pain blurred everything out until Yin hit a surface and bounced, dust kicking up high to the air. Gravity had finally reasserted itself.

Yin coughed, waving a hand to make the dust settle, and rapidly realising three things, each worse than the last.

One, airbending did not work, Two, he was older—dressed entirely in airbender monk robes underground with everything cast in a insidiously red light—and, perhaps most importantly, Three; Koh the facestealer was not far in front of him. Koh—the spirit of 10,000 faces. The self anointed one. The ripper of false truths.

He looked possibly more terrifying than thoughts could emote. Long body—longer than many bison tail end to tail end. Chittering centipede limbs. And the eye... oh the eye. Blinking furiously through faces, Koh slithered close with frightening speed. Slithering in circles on the walls of the cave, closer in a spiral, covering the only way out. Eyes full of Anger. Of fury. Terrible promises yet to come.

Yin was trapped in a cave. But not just any cave. The earth bender smooth walls and thick blanket of ash could mean only a single thing.

This was a cave where air-benders escaped from the fire nation to. Or would be in the future. Hidden deep underground so the benders would never find the way in. So the air-benders could live, in a sense.

Bones stuck out from the ash. Small orange yellow tatters of cloth hung on the walls, the corpses, the air itself. This was a mass graveyard. And Koh? He was going to add one more body to it.


	5. Chapter 5

Koh slithered closer, all talons and chitin glistening in sharp red light. The spirit zipped closer before Yin even had a chance to react, arching in a circle like a snake about to strike. Raising high into the air, as high as the low stone ceiling would allow, like a cobra preparing to strike.

“It has been eons since a mortal has visited my realm in such a way...”the Kabuki mask face spoke, inches away from Yin. Noses close, almost touching. There was not room for a single bead of sweat to pass between.

Before Yin could blink, Koh turned and slithered into the darkness. Chitin and claws echoing strangely around the hollow chamber to a background beat of a rumble.

“What do you mean?”

The wind whistled ominously in the empty cavern. Shifting dust cleaned fire cleaned bones and horned metal helmets. Whistling wind with no reason or purpose.

Koh did not answer.

Did not speak.

He moved.

“Oh? But you are more foolish than most.” Koh laughed cruelly. It was a echoey cry, each sudden blink of the insect like mandible switching faces and voices. It was the sound of a old man and a child. A horse lady and braying donkey.

Yin took great care not to move.

Not to think.

Not to breathe.

Koh was known as the face-stealer for a reason. For sentencing those to a fate worse than death.

In the spirit world things are both more and less literal. It is the place above all, or beneath depending on your point of view. Spirits, being the metaphysical reflection of the physical are both powerful and weak. Entrapped in the limits of their creation. Hei Bi, the spirit of the forest could never leave. Nor could the Painted Lady leave her river. They were tied to it. Bound. The material and the spiritual were both sides of the same coin.

Younger spirits, like the Painted Lady were tied to a physical location. Older ones... older ones were tied to the concepts themselves.

“Speak.” Koh commanded. “I have been bound by my oath to the Ancient Ones shortly after Time itself to guide you. Despite your ignorance, I cannot break my vow.”

“Vow?” Yin asked in the flattest most disinterested voice he could. Trying—so very hard—to act like a stranger asked what day it was on the street.

“You are ignorant.” Koh legs shivered like a agitated swarm. “No matter. I will explain.”

The wind was picking up. Not much, but the piles of dust and ash were swirling. Forming small devils before drifting apart. If you looked at it closely, over the side of your eye, it almost seemed like human silhouettes fighting in the wind.

“But first—a question mortal. What do you know of me?”

Yin’s attention was all on Koh. The wrong move meant free rein. And that was a fate worse than you could possibly imagine.

“You are Koh the Facestealer. A Ancient and Wise Spirit.”

“Ha! Hardly!” Koh seemed to laugh genuinely. It seemed to go on as the sound of drums steadily increased, as the wind ever so gently started to swirl. “While I am Ancient, there are those who have came into being Eons before me. They are older than time itself.”

Older than time itself? What did that even mean?

“As for my name... that is incorrect. It is a lie, told by shattered men come to beg at my feet.” He rose up, 10 arms outstretched with the red light of fire at his back. “I have been known by many names. Wise one, self-anointed one, veil ripper... and Koh—the stealer of False Faces. Do you happen to know where you are? What journey you are undertaking?”

Yin did not.

Not at all.

He did not say anything.

“You can show emotion. My vow with the Ancient Ones allows that. But only for this journey, and if you lie.... do you know what happens to those without faces?”

“What?”

“Your face, in the spirit realm, is your heart.” Koh swirled around like agitated water down a drain. “It is your being. What makes you unique. Without it you will be a soulless being. One that I can control so long as I wear your face. Control and influence to do my bidding.”

Oh.

Oh spirits.

That was a fate worse than death.

Koh stopped moving and zipped centimeter away from Yin’s face.

“And I sense that you will be close to the Avatar soon.” Koh’s voice took a angry tone. “Should you fail, you will help me destroy the avatar—once and for all!”

What in the fresh hell.

What even.

Spirits... could not lie, could they? They could imply, could deceive, could use guises and language to lead the mind elsewhere. But they could not lie.

“I’ve never even met the avatar!” Yin screamed, frustration at everything finally—finally, pushing through. “All I know is that I’m an airbender suddenly when i woke up this morning—and now I’m here with no clue what’s going on!! Tell me Spirit! What is this! Why am I here?!!”

Koh had stilled, and for the first time did something Yin never expected. He stood still and thought before answering.

“We do not have much time Mortal,” Koh evenly spoke, “I will tell you a story. It will not be a nice one, and then after this I will help you.”

“What’s the catch? You can’t be doing this just because of some agreement or vow you won’t tell me about?”

“The catch is you listen to my story, all of it, reserving judgement. It is a lengthy one, and personally shameful. I will only say it once.”

“...Why?” Yin puzzled. “What makes me so special?”

“You have potential young mortal,” Koh’s eyes gleamed. “Should you survive past this, and make your way to the spirit world to find me again, I will tell you another tale that will help you in your journeys.”

Kohs legs slowed down, no longer tapping a dance on the rocks of the cave. And then, without fanfare or preamble, he spoke.

“At the beginning, before time itself were the Lion Turtles....”


	6. Chapter 6

“At the beginning, before time itself were the Lion Turtles....They were the first being in existence. Existing in perfect harmony and balance in the void. Before the spirit world and the material plane, before the Tree of Time. 

This is not their story.

This is the tale of how the first Ancient one died and the man who killed her. The first Avatar, a man by the name of Wan.

It all began so long ago... before the Second Age. Before the Avatar cycle. At the beginning of the Second Age the world was engulfed in war. It was a war that lasted thousands of years. Years that I spent watching from the sidelines, watching the Avatar forget their vows, break their oath time and time anew.”

Koh settled still, eyes off looking at something far in the distance.

“Avatar Wan’s beginning is of no consequence to this part of the tale, all you must know is that he dared to steal from the most Ancient one—the first to do so—and in doing so, caused the death of his daughter. Lin—the element of Air.

In those times before the Second age...was the era of the spirit wilds. It was before bending, of a sort. I expect your kind has long forgotten about it, but you lived on the backs of Lion Turtles. Who, for some reason, allowed you when they should have squashed you like the insects you are.

It was the fifth avatar who dealt the final blow, but the first who set the stage. After the avatar divided the mortal and spirit realms, your kind was engaged in war that lasted thousands of years. Due to respect, the ancient ones were left alone. They granted your kind the might of their element, to protect you in the spirit wilds, and left to explore the world.

All but one.

The Air Element was the truest expression of freedom. She used her nature to fly, so in tune that for centuries she had no need to touch the ground. Preferring to sleep next to a cluster of mountains became her undoing. Her favorite place was a cluster of 3 mountains in the East. It was where she had first learned to feel the freedom of the world, untethering, and becoming one with the void.

Your war had already ran for 100 of your years.

The air warriors, hardened by a generation of battle, stayed in her shadow. Why I do not know, either from the strength their element got next to her, or for protection believing no one would start a battle under her nose.

They stole. Food, mounts, supplies. It was a long battle, that resulted in a crater so deep you could stand in the middle and not see the edges from either side.

They were wrong.

Having angered each of the other 3 bending nations, each one decided by themselves to attack back. Without telling the other.

They came from all sides.

The earth shook, causing a canyon to collapse which woke the Ancient one from her Slumber. The Water tribes had planned to send a great wave from the sea up the mountains to drown the Air Bandits. When the wave a mile high hit the falling earth, it concentrated and set a jet water, hitting the Ancient One and causing her to fall in the deep water.

Which was when the Great Comet came.

The fire-benders had camped on the mountains blind side. They rounded the peak of the mountain, seeing nothing but Air Bandits in water and a dark shape in the water. All of them unleashed their inner and outer fire as the waves receded. By the time they realized it was Lin in the fire, it was too late. They had grievously injured the Ancient One.

Avatar Liam was absent. And it was that moment that he came flying by having taken a short trip to the spirit wilds and seeing the fire from great distance. His fury was legendary, but futile. Lin’s internal energy was in disarray, and she was severely burned.

She died later the same day.

It was then the first Ancient One asked me to stand guard over the human race. Distraught, he gave me the knowledge and power to enter the realms, and the ability to clear away illusion. That was my goal. My mantra. To observe you, and if need be, to curb the more dangerous elements. And should someone worthy come along, help them.”

“Now,” Koh’s legs shivered as he finished his tale, “Tell me mortal, where are you?”


	7. Chapter 7

“....I’m....in the awakening cycle, aren’t I?” Yin asked. “Everything’s red. This must be the base chakra, isn’t it?”

“Hmmm...correct mortal.” Koh swooshed away seemingly disappointed denied the opportunity to add Yin’s face to his collection. His chiton form chattered into the red shadows of the cave, insectesoid legs tapping a taboo beat amongst the stone. A low voice echoed, laughing, seemingly all around. “This time.”

Yin shivered.

Bound by ancient oath Koh may be, but that knowledge bough Yin no relief.

It was chilling. A threat.

One wrong move was all it would take.

One wrong move to become a faceless one.

“So, what do we do now?”

“We? There is no we child. I have fulfilled my end of the bargain.”

“What?! But nothings happened!?”

“Yet.” Koh’s legs chittered gleefully hidden amongst the stone. “Not yet.”

There was a tense moment of absolute deafening silence. Silence of the grave, moments before disruption. Tonal drums echoed in the background, booming louder and louder with each stroke. Their drone hypnotizing the air itself.

“I can only inform you. To tell you where you are, what you must do. It is entirely up to you to pass the tests and remember...should you be unauthentic and lie to yourself...Your face will look marvelous in my collection.”

Spirits of the wind roared, ever so subtly louder in response. Almost as if the shadows on the walls were coming to life. Twisted Red flames burning unconnected silhouettes of Earth and Air bender alike.

Without mercy.

Without guilt. 

“There are eight main chakras,” Koh began, “You must pass all seven of the body’s chakras, accepting the requirements to pass onto the next one.”

“Eight? I thought there were just seven?”

“Seven are of the body, one of the soul. Should you have time, you may attempt the eighth. It will not affect the previous seven should you fail, but be warned—I cannot follow you there.”

Yin’s thoughts churned like the ground beneath his feet. What was the eight chakra? Why could Koh not follow? What sort of deal was struck with the Lion Turtle?

There had to be more going on beneath the surface. Something that was not said, nor implied. Koh was old, predating the Avatar cycle. This chaotic Chi awakening was dangerous, by Koh’s own recollection not used by humanity in eons. So old that it’s knowledge was forgotten.

The beating of the drums got louder. Clearer. Just as the howling of the wind.

Where was this?

A sound shifted in the drums. A metallic clink, ever so subtle. The faint noise of metal grinding on itself. Suddenly, and ever so obviously in hindsight, Yin realized what was going on.

The drums were fire-benders marching ever closer. Underneath their beat rose the spirits of the Earth and Air. Benders who escaped into the mountains to hide from the Fire Nation—only to be brutally killed.

Time...was reversing itself.

Turning back anew as the final battle approached.

Yin’s body was 15 years old.

He had failed them all, and now would die with them.

“What must I do?” Yin frantically asked Koh.

The sound of marching feet seemed clearer now. The Wind picking up ashen forms, reconstructing them to flesh. Unfamiliarly familiar faces blew into focus. Monk Gyatso. Aang. Aged up faces of the benders he’d seen on the long walk up to the Elders chamber. A walk which may as well have been lifetimes ago.

“The Earth chakra deals with survival, and is blocked by fear. This is what you are most afraid of. Despite your curious knowledge of what Sozin has planned for your kind, knowledge that I know naut how you possess, most of all you are afraid most of all that you will fail. That your actions will lead to ruin.”

“What can I do about that? It’s a future worry—it may not come to pass! I accept that as soon as I’d learned where and who I was. Why is the illusion not vanishing then?”

“Nothing,” Koh said, “because it is true.”

“What!”

“It is, and always will be true. The Future is always in motion and cannot be controlled. You must accept that to live your life.”

“Then how do we get to the next chakra!?”

Koh slithered away, to the mouth of the cave, right before the bend. The soldiers armor clad feet crashed a meticulous melody behind him. There was no time. Soon, in mere moments, they would be upon us all.

“You are inside the Chakra mortal, acceptance will only go so far. The Physical Awakening clears the Chakras from the outside in—only clearing the gate less than halfway. The Spiritual Awakening clears the chakra from the inside out, unlocking its full potential.”

Shouts of commanding officers could be heard. Fire, bright blinding fire lit the cave behind Koh turning him to a dark silhouette, invisible and immaterial to the fire-benders. A Commanding Officer roared something to his subordinates. They quickly packed together in line formation.

“You must fight. Fight and win. That is the only way.”

A volley of fireballs the size of boulders flew through Koh, screaming in the air. Growing closer. Ever closer.

Yin looked to his left, seeing a tear struck Aang surrounded by a circle of older Airbenders. To his Right was Monk Gyatso. Face the firmest it’s ever been, arms snapping up in a twirling motion forming a vortex directing the fire behind him—for a moment—then directly towards the line of origin. The Fire benders.

Loud shrill screams pierced the air as a fire bender was cooked alive in his own armor.

Gyatso’s face was cold and impassive. He had just killed, and would do so again, countless times to protect his students. His children.

Aangs face froze in disbelief. Refusing to process the sight in front of his very eyes. His teacher, his best friend, throwing away decades of belief and pacifism. Indulging in brutality.

Yin’s heart broke watching Aang’s break. 

The whole world overturned.

Prepared or not, the Battle was upon them.


End file.
